(Not Applicable)
The United States Government has rights in this invention pursuant to Department of Energy Contract No. DE-AC04-94AL85000 with Sandia Corporation.
This invention relates to a bridge for crossing a body of water. More particularly, it relates to a modular bridge that may be easily transported to a site and assembled.
A bridge is a conventional structure utilized to place a pathway across a body of water. If the pathway has sufficient strength to support a load, then this load may be transported via the pathway over the body of water. If a bridge is over a body of water at a particular location is needed quickly, either because an existing bridge has been rendered unusable by either natural disasters (such as flood or earthquake) or the ravages of mankind (war or accident), or because events (such as troop movement during war) require a body of water to be crossed where no bridge has existed, then temporary bridges are typically used.
Floating bridges have been suggested for such applications. R. Woodfin et al., xe2x80x9cResults of Experiments on Rigid Polyurethane Foam (RPF) for Protection from Mines, Sandia National Laboratories report SAND98-0645C, Feb. 1998, teaches that prefabricated barges may be constructed using nylon fabric for exterior and internal compartment walls which are filled with RPF on-site to form a durable, low-draft barge that is easily transported to a body of water. U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,001 of M. Stranzinger teaches that floats can be assembled to form platforms and bridges.
It is an object of this invention to provide a floatable module that may be strung together with other modules to form a floating bridge.
It is another object of the invention to provide a floatable module that is filled with expandable foam on-site.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a modular floatable bridge that may be easily transported to a site and erected.
To achieve the foregoing and other objects, the present invention may comprise an outer envelope having a top and bottom pieces, each defining a relatively planar surface having spaced parallel ends and spaced sides with the sides being longer than the ends, the top and bottom surfaces being parallel to and spaced from each other. Each of these pieces is also symmetrical along a center line extending between the ends, and centered over each other. A first end piece extends from a first end of the top piece to a first end of the bottom piece, and a second end piece extends from a second end of the top piece to a second end of the bottom piece. Each of the end pieces extends at an angle other than a right angle from each of the surfaces. A pair of spaced side pieces complete the envelope, and at least the side pieces are made of supple sheet material. A tubular cable run extends between the end pieces for pieces for enabling a plurality of modules to be strung together.
Additional objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following description or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained as particularly pointed out in the appended claims.